I’m going to be hassling you for articles for the Website New page, so be warned. First up is a great article from Julie about the OO Cup in Ireland:
OO CUP 2026 – IRELAND
This is a brief account of my dismal effort at the OO Cup, which took place over 5 days in the Republic of Ireland, south-east of Killarney, Kerry. I say dismal because I only attempted days 1 and 4 of the event – and retired on both!! Unfortunately, two of the potential areas for the events had to be abandoned due to, I believe, constraints on numbers due to environmental considerations. One of them would have been the Rossbeigh Dunes which, as it happened, were across the water from the cottage where some of us were staying. This could have been a fantastic event – as the photo below indicates.
The other potential area was near Muckross – another lovely area near Killarney.
As a result of these changes, the first 3 days of the event were in the same area – Black Lakes, Kilgarvan Wind Farm. The journey to the event involved an hour’s drive from our cottage along main roads, followed by a 9 kilometre drive up a gravel track to the wind farm – horrendous! And I was just a passenger! Not an encouraging start to the day, really. Fortunately, we were parked quite near to the Start, and the courses were shorter than usual for everyone. Mine was only 2.5k and 120m of climb. Not a problem!
However….the terrain was complex rough open with marshes and crags – although the marshes were pretty dry and runnable. But the rough open was horrible as it was very long, tussocky grass and heather and even when walking I found it difficult and slow-going as I wasn’t sure whether I was treading on firm ground or not. So, by the time I’d found my first control, I had already decided that I wasn’t enjoying it and consequently lost concentration and focus. As a result, I overshot my second control and, when I realised where I was, I couldn’t face going back up the hill, through grotty vegetation, to get it. I then decided that I wasn’t going to come back to this area for days 2 and 3! But I did carry on and got another 5 controls before ‘escaping’ onto the track and back to the Finish.
After a lovely two non-orienteering days – walking from Muckross House up to a waterfall and out by Muckross Lake on the first day, then a walk along the Rossbeigh Dunes and a visit to Kells Bay Sub-Tropical Gardens on the next – I attempted Day 4 of the event on Crohane mountain.
Although it was similar terrain to the first day, it seemed to be slightly easier going underfoot to my first control, probably as we were late starts and the vegetation had been trampled down more. I thought I was being really careful going to number 2 and I arrived at a control which I thought was just in the right place to be mine. To this day, I still don’t quite understand where I was, but I managed to find 3 controls that weren’t mine in the process of trying to relocate!. After about 25 minutes, and getting more and more frustrated, I decided to call it a day and head across to number 5. I found 5 to 10 OK, although the going underfoot to 5 was pretty horrible.
So, once again, I had retired and, as the next day’s event was in the same area, I decided then and there that I wasn’t doing it. (And we had VERY early starts)
As you can tell from this sad tale, I’m not a very committed orienteer! To me, the main purpose of my trip was to see as much of Ireland as I could and the orienteering event was just the initial incentive to go there. So on day 5 of the event I headed on to my next destination on the Dingle Peninsula – the start of another 6 days of seeing Ireland. And my orienteering failures were soon forgotten.
Julie Astin